


Corpse Flower

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [23]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Bellamione Cult War, Bellamione Cult War Prompt: Corpse Bride, Blood Magic, Blood and Gore, Dark Hermione Granger, Discord: Bellamione Cult, F/F, I've Never Watched Corpse Bride, Immortality, Inspired by Corpse Bride (2005), One Shot, Prompt Fic, Runes, Team Furbae, faustian bargains, runic magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 14:35:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20837108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: “Wakey, wakey Bellatrix,” Hermione hummed as she kneeled down beside her betrothed to gently nip upon an earlobe, “We have oh so much to do, and I’ve so very much to show you.”





	Corpse Flower

**Author's Note:**

> I've never watched Corpse Bride, but the prompt was the prompt, and this involves a ring and a corpse... so
> 
> mildly edited

Vast ritual circles that needed to be penned and drawn out in blood (instead of some other more practical mineral or crushed item) always seemed to be more trouble than they were worth. Well, that had at least been Hermione’s opinion on the subject for the last century or two, she wasn’t quite sure what other witches or warlocks thought of the damned things, seeing as too many of them feared or hated her to ever approach or interact.

The Leeds Witch

Dark Mistress

Caldera’s Temptress

Black Bitch

She had earned each of these names, and a dozen more that were  _ far  _ away from polite to speak among company, by being  _ the _ Dark Witch; a student of Morgana and ardent researcher of all things dark and forbidden, her names carried curses that now left her all alone. Not that it mattered very much, she was quite able to accomplish her tasks with relative ease in the silence of her own company, but it  _ did _ become quite lonely sometimes. And really, another set of eyes would certainly cut down on any accidents; a firm review never hurt, always helped.

But alas, she was alone in her preparations for her once a decade ritual. This particular bit of darkness had her dusting off and oiling ritual knives that hadn’t been used but a handful of times, long tapered things that looked more like thin razors than knives of actual worth. She also was alone in her preparation of the ritual space beneath her expansive home, left to her own devices as she pulled out blocks of beeswax and dropped down to her knees to get to work.

Blood, a living thing despite those moments when it was outside its intended host, was a living thing that sought out downward slopes and moved about all on its own, mostly due to the fact that coagulation was a bitch to work with and a hunk of half congealed blood was nowhere near as useful in rituals or sacrifices as fresh, flowing material was. Usually, if the needed runes were to be strong enough, she would have to ply her victims with potions of blood thinners and anticoagulants for sometimes days on end, multiple times a night, all in preparation for the ritual. It was a simple matter but one that bored her to tears and stripped away some of the fun that was to be had from  _ real _ carnage.

After all, what could ever be better than a spur of the moment splash fest as she opened up an unwilling participant before dancing beneath their arterial spray, calling for Gods and Demons alike to join her. 

Certainly not  _ this, _ that was for sure.

But needs must, and so here she was, once again dipping lowly beneath a hanging body that swayed and uttered barely muffled cries of distress, a pot in her hands to collect every drip of offering. The space at her feet had been coated in lines and arching symbols drawn out by beeswax the week prior before being allowed to set and dry until the links were tight and settled. Blood flowed down and out amid her runic path until it had filled each and every channel, perfectly placed rune, and all the other arcane symbols that helped support her continuously exciting life.

Unfortunately for Hermione, always so thoughtful and eager to begin, she managed to miss just  _ one _ line that night, one little ending piece to a rune built for protection. Normally it would end two centimeters before a sharp line that began a rune to summon a Lesser King; but on this night, one of hundreds that she’d worked perfectly in the past, it was  _ three _ centimeters away.

A minute difference for sure, but, well… When dealing with those few beings who knew souls as currency more than living things, that was all it took.

A purple burst of light, the maddened cackling of the Lord’s gathered below, and her unholy life was repurposed from within until it extended out towards infinity, with only the slightly nasty side effect of wiping away her invulnerability. Oh, she still managed to hold onto her endless youth, always remaining young and sprightly like the twenty year old girl who had first unearthed a tome bound in flesh and bone beneath a sacrificial rock, but there were… Complications.

The first of which were the now unhealing rune marks that she had painstakingly carved into her own skin not even twenty hours before. None of the slices were what could exactly be described as deep, merely shallow enough to pull blood out and across the surface before it reached open channels for her magic to spill out into, but they were  _ supposed _ to heal when the ritual was completed.

_ She _ was supposed to heal when it was done.

\---

The destroyed and tattered remains of the ritual space beneath her home continued to taunt Hermione for the remainder of that year, and many afterwards. Her monumental cock up had precluded a sudden insensitivity towards arcane ritual magics; specifically she found herself suddenly and violently allergic towards those magics which could extend her mortality and offer invulnerability. Now whenever she attempted, and Gods did she ever do so, the spaces would reject her with violent forces that lashed out to mark her runed pocked flesh and drill curses down to her bone. Each mark was a replica of her curse, a reminder of her failures, and with each appearance just a  _ little _ bit more of her sanity was swiped away

The rot took hold not much longer after that.

\---

Bellatrix Black wasn’t what one would consider as a coward.

Over the last twenty-five years of her life she had been dared to complete who knew how many countless acts of stupidity and bravery, completing them all. Well, except the few that she attempted and either failed due to a sudden lack of consciousness or the splintering of a bone. But still; no one of her friends or family could ever mistake her for someone not willing to put their life on the line for a dare or a good time.

And what Rodolphus had just dared her to do seemed like one hell of a cakewalk.

Over a lovely round of drinks that older man had dared her to spend one night of seclusion inside the terror estate known locally as the Shrieking Shack, a run down old mansion (which held no lick of sense or reason towards why it was called a  _ shack,  _ considering it was really one hell of a giant mansion) that was long rumored to have housed a maniacal witch back in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The stories surrounding the Shack all seemed to vary slightly, from a jilted lover turned Dark Mistress to a student of the arcane hell-bent on learning all that she could until her mind had split open from the strain of dark knowledge, and lastly the theory that she was a simple woman ostracized by her community and shunned into devilish obscurity.

Bellatrix had her money placed on that last one; what with so many texts and accounts having to come light within recent years about how enemies would accuse one another of being warlocks or witches over the smallest of slights. Yes, Bellatrix believed wholeheartedly that the legends were a load of bunk to cover up the mistreatment of a woman who had valued knowledge at her fingertips more than the vagina fearing, pious fucks that used to run Godric’s Hollow.

Besides, everyone knew that Magic wasn’t something that really existed. This whole night would be easy money and a few hours away from the expectations of her peers, friends, and the hangerons who seemed to love clinging to the slowly rising researcher that she’d morphed into. Not that she had planned for any of this to happen, what with her prior attitude towards life.

Bellatrix had been born the youngest daughter to Cygnus and Druella Black (two cunts if you’d ever met one), the younger sibling to Andromeda and younger still to Narcissa, and now an aunt already to their respective broods. She had once been rebellious, black skirts, corsets cinched too tightly around her waist, and a bad attitude that had made her the perfect fit for a band of goth-punk misfits who called themselves the Death Eaters.

Oh, she had been one edgy little cunt when she was younger (and she’d be the first to admit to it if asked or questioned), but now that she was older, a little wiser, and far and away more chilled out after getting her family to accept her sexuality, well… She was different. Not terribly so, she could still raise herself up into a right terror when necessary, but that attitude and those defense mechanisms were no longer her number one setting. Black still managed to beat out every other shade as her favorite color but she had grown and graduated from the odd design choices of her youth into far more appropriate attire; jeans and blouses that she pressed and washed religiously, skirts and dresses that came from this century instead of the last, and a toned down post-gothic look that left her appearing less like the lead singer in a deathcore band and more like a woman with a degree, a future, a fiance and a life spread out before her.

And oh how she  _ hated _ the life that would be.

Sure her family had eventually managed to hold their tongues when disrespecting her sexuality, sure they had tried to become attentive and supportive of her needs and dreams, but they still hadn’t once let up in their desire for her to match her sisters accomplishments, no matter the age or difference in temperament. To that end she had suddenly, and quite against her wishes, found herself betrothed to Thomasin Riddle, the last daughter to the Gaunt-Riddle family and the first in line to inherit their vast estate and fortunes. Thomasin wasn’t  _ bad _ per se, but she wasn’t anything at all like Bellatrix’s chosen type. Instead of growing up and flowering into something beyond her teenage fascinations, Thomasin had instead doubled down into a downer of a goth and an annoyance of a beau.

But, well, those thoughts were all better off assaulting her another night, for now she had a dare to beat.

\---

The Shrieking Shack was as ancient as they came; a withered away old hulk that looked broken from the outside and was three times as worse within. The whole aura that blanketed the grounds was malicious, if not outright psychotic, like the blood of the ancients had seeped in through the walls to give them some sort of twisted sentience that they could call their own. Bellatrix entered through the half broken down front door to then stand still and begin twisting and pulling at the engagement ring on her finger, fiddling and scraping the flat of her thumb against the meager stone while biting her lip between pearly white teeth. She wasn’t afraid, never afraid, but she  _ was _ apprehensive about this land, and now so very close to giving in to whatever instinct inside of her screamed  _ danger _ at the top of its lungs.

With a sigh, she hoisted the backpack strapped over her shoulder just a little bit higher, setting her jaw in preparation of trying to find the basement. Floorboards creaked and groaned beneath her feet as she walked, ash and dust that had accumulated over the centuries now loose enough to fall upon her shoulders, clouds of thick gray kicked up as she meandered over carpets that looked old enough to have seen the beginning of time itself. The hand that clutched her flashlight was slowly giving way to a cramp with all the exertion she forced into it when the feeling of being watched continued to grow and grow.

_ ‘There’s nothing here,’ _ she reassured her rapidly beating heart,  _ ‘Just dust and bugs, and certainly not the remains of some crazy satanist or anything.’ _

The interior layout of the home was maze like in its sprawl, a haphazard collection of twisting passaged and stairwells that doubled back, some of them going lower into the foundations of the home than others. Before too long she was suddenly power walking through any door only to find herself walking back out into a side door of the kitchen, the parlor, or a hallway that she had already traversed once or twice. The longer that she was inside and wandering the more it appeared that geometry had fled this rotting pile of wood and concrete, her footsteps swallowed up by the house as it sought to lose her within its corridors.

Finally though, right as she was about to give in and call her sisters for help or extraction, she found the doorway leading down into the cellar proper. The wood that blocked her passage was just as old and decrepit as the rest of the house, a thin panel made ages ago that was now just barely hanging onto three brass hinges that began squealing and screaming in displeasure and disuse as she forged a path onwards and downwards. The steps below her boots were rickety at best, highly unsafe at the worst, and for a single terrified second Bellatrix felt that the whole assembly would collapse to leave her stuck behind in a basement with no cellular reception or method of evacuation, the only person knowing her location a ridiculous drunk with a memory so short a goldfish would beat him every time. To her surprise, and very subdued delight, it held all the way until her feet were touched down safely on solid earthen floor.

The space beneath the home was modest at best, nearly half the total size of the floor sitting atop it, and though it was unlit there were enough hanging lanterns with uneaten cotton wicks and sealed tanks of oil for her to light the space in no time with a flick of her borrowed (read stolen) zippo. Now that she had arrived Bellatrix thought it best to waste no time at all, unrolling her sleeping kit out from her bag and down to the floor so that she could settle in for an easy night. When she was secure, warm cotton overhead and twelve lanterns lit up at specific locations to allow her the most visibility that she could get, she twisted her hair into a bun and lay flat back.

As she lay there and ruminated on her life, the ring upon her finger began to feel cold and foreign, a sensation she was more used to than she would have liked to admit. Here she was; lying beneath a supposedly haunted estate, ready and willing to brave madness or death for a dare but still not strong enough to simply tell her parents  _ ‘No.’ _

“Fuck you,” Bellatrix surged upwards as anger and displeasure burst forth from the farthest corners of her heart to scream hatred in her veins, “Screw you, you fucking fucks!”

At the moment it felt like the most natural thing in the world, the ring clutched within her palm spiraling outwards and into the darkness of a corner after pinging off the concrete of a wall. In the seconds afterwards it felt ridiculous, throwing a tantrum where no one who mattered could see her. And in the aftermath, ten or twenty seconds at most, it was shame that had her pulling her body from the sleeping bag to trudge off in a half crouch amid the corner where she had tossed the little circle of metal.

When one minute passed by with no sign of the silver band, she grew worried. When five minutes moved with ease she grew frantic. And when  _ ten _ were set to crawl across the readout of her cellphone she grew panicked, looking about with frantic lurches as she searched around and around the hard packed-

_ There! _

Lying still upon a thin stick that protruded upwards from the earthen floor the ring sat quietly as it taunted her, fallen down as far as it could onto the knobby bit of stick that barely sat upon the ground. As her eyes widened she could almost feel some certain amount of malice radiating off that ring, some odd little quirk that indicated the inanimate object did  _ not _ enjoy being tossed around like a carnival trinket.

“Bloody fuck,” Bellatrix growled out, her hand snatching out to the stick in an attempt to pluck the metal and return it to its rightful place. When her fingers landed on the oddly colored branch, several things happened, all right at once.

First; a shock of energy bashed outwards from the branch, purple and near blinding as it covered the floor and herself in a curling smoke and acrid cold flame.

Next; the ground beneath the branch split away as a form began to haul itself upwards from the dirt and onto unsteady limbs that shook with effort.

Lastly; Bellatrix fainted, unable and unwilling to deal with the madness and insanity that was a corpse wreathed in purple flame rising out from its burial mound.

\---

“W-what-”

“Hello,” spoke a voice that choked the breath from Bellatrix’ throat when she leaned upwards through the cold grasp of arms and something harder holding her back. Her eyes, previously closed in unconsciousness, flew open at the realization that she was no longer quite alone.

With barely a second to waste her arms and legs were scrabbling against the hard packed earth as she tore herself away from the grasp of whoever had been holding her, her lungs filling up with stale air and ash-like dust that she kicked up in her haste to get away.

“T-the fuck are you!” Bellatrix’s words were directed at the being that remained shrouded in half light, a woman by the looks of it, a face shrouded in darkness from the lantern lit up behind her, all in inky blackness except her eyes. Where Bellatrix would have expected to see nothing she saw  _ something, _ something deep and purple that flickered and sputtered like some infernal flame. Oddly enough the same effect seemed pressed into her flesh where Bellatrix could see it, the crudely etched symbols floating across her limbs in repeating patterns that seemed both layered and deliberate.

“I should be the one asking you that, seeing as you’re in  _ my _ home,” the voice taunted her question with grating noises and a barely held together tone of distrust and displeasure, distinctly feminine but more a growl than a sentence.

Bellatrix’s heart hitched up between her throat, “The hell are you talking about?! This fucking place has been abandoned for generations, no one fucking lives here,” Bellatrix rushed her words between suddenly chilled teeth, her back finally pressing up against a wall when she ran out of room to retreat. The creature -  _ woman _ \- kneeling before her seemed unamused, the silhouette of her body rocking back and forth in an unsteady manner that seemed more manic than intentional, more the jitter of nerves than a purposeful display.

“How long’s it been then,” the woman-creature choked out through her dry throat, “What year is it?”

_ ‘What year is it? WHAT YEAR IS IT!?’ _

“It’s- it’s fucking two thousand and six you nutcase,” Bellatrix replied with anger to cover the tremor threatening to drown out her voice. Surely this wasn’t happening, surely she had simply fallen asleep in her bag and was having one hell of a nightmare, one for the record books this one, all perfectly rational and-

“A hundred and forty fucking years?!” The figure roared her words out, body leaning forward as she came to shaking feet in a hobble towards Bellatrix.

Bellatrix, for her part, could do nothing more than draw in her breath at the sight of the uncovered woman, mind suddenly reeling as she took in the monster that she had unwittingly unleashed.

Her left side was far and away much worse off than the right, that much was for sure, her left arm below the elbow just an assortment of uncovered bones and jerky looking ligaments that barely held the assemblage all together. The length of her radius and ulna were bleached white all throughout with the exception of small imperfect symbols etched and carved directly into their face, a haze of strange and alien script in purple that made Bellatrix’s vision double if she stared at them for too long.

The skin that covered the remainder of her from was an ashen gray that just barely held onto the hint that it may have once been tanned, like a leather garment left outside to discolor and accrue a stain, a corpse shade all over and throughout. The hair atop her head was still relatively alright, a bundle of braided red and brown that reminded Bellatrix of a style she had seen on an actress nearly a summer ago; beautiful in its intricacy but soaked through with dirt and grime.

Her face was young, youthful even, perky cheeks and a dimpled face that was a beauty in its own right, though the grimace currently slashed across her lips brought an echo of fear to lance its way down Bellatrix’s spine. The woman's chest was normal, two breasts that had heat rising up her neck and cheeks, a shapely ‘V’ etched into her abdomen in evidence that she was no stranger to hard work, and a tuft of orange and brown hair that covered her in  _ just _ the right way to set Bellatrix’s heart aflame with something bordering on base desire. There were holes though, and literal ones at that, a rib poking through an emaciated chest here, an unhealed gash upon her thigh there, the tops of her shins showing through the removed flesh of her left leg and a motley assortment of cuts that mimicked those strange symbols covering the rest of her; all purple and alive in a way that pulsed and  _ sang _ to Bellatrix’s cowering soul.

“Who are you,” the woman asked, her lithe form crouching down before Bellatrix’s face until their noses were almost touching, no sign or smell of rot and decay.

“Um, I-, well that is- I’m Bellatrix.” Her words stuttered all the way out, her face scrunching up in a wince at how terrified she sounded.

“Bellatrix,” the woman -  _ creature, ghoul _ \- muttered as she wound a hand around the haphazard bun of Bellatrix’s hair, “Bellatrix, right now I want to do two things.”

Bellatrix swallowed through the dry mouth and throat that had suddenly crept up on her, acutely aware that in this position the naked woman was practically melting into her front, two cold lumps pressing ardently into her chest. She gathered her nerves and looked the woman in the eyes, those purple bouts of flame becoming more distinct the longer she stared, “W-what?”

“Well,” the woman grinned a sharp smile full of teeth all far too jagged and inhuman to be called anything other than fangs, “First I want to truly thank you for waking me up. Apparently I took a nap that lasted just a mite longer than I’d intended.” Her words halted as she stared down to pluck a centipede from between the arching connections of her wrist bone, “Second, I’d like to offer you a boon, one that’ll not only help you, but me as well.”

Bellatrix’s eyes blanked as her mind clamped down and turned off all unneeded portions to focus on the woman’s words, “Meaning?”

“Well,” the shark's grin stretched and peeled across bloodred lips, “You threw that ring for a reason, right? And you _ do _ know that acts committed in a ritual space is binding, right?”

Another portion of Bellatrix’s mind that housed logic and reason began snapping closed as she began to panic and hyperventilate, “...What?”

“Oh bloody Morgana,” the woman lowered her head in exasperation, “What school did you go to that didn’t at least inform you of these magics? Durmstrang? Ilvermorny? It’s every witch’s duty to know these sorts of things.”

“Um,” Bellatrix squirmed beneath her suddenly too intense stare, “I went to Harvard?”

“...”

\---

The girl was admittedly quite stupid, not a single magical spark within her soul, but she would certainly suffice for what Hermione needed. Needless to say she didn’t Bellatrix anything, merely choosing instead to knock her back out into unconsciousness with a quick little bit of magic so that she could properly set up her ritual space while glancing down intermittently at the quaint little ring sitting snugly over her finger.

Sure, at some point in her history she may have been both sane and whole, but the centuries of loneliness and disappointment had, well… It had  _ changed _ a few things about her thought process. Not that she wasn’t aware of her actions or decisions (she had kept detailed logs back when she had been alive and stuck to the activity even more during her cursed immortality), but the girl had offered her the ring and Hermione wasn’t one to pass up a break in the miasma that had come to describe her unlife. And besides, so what if it took the girl a few centuries to see it her way? It wouldn’t be out of character for her to do this; what was the fun in being an actual evil witch if she couldn’t cause some havoc and wreck some souls every now and then.

Her ritual knife made short work of the bloodied woman that was now spread out across the stone floor of her ritual space in a recreation of her own ridiculous accident that had stripped her body of its protections, offering a passing Demon the chance to bargain with an annoyingly inconvenient twist.

_ ‘Fuck the Monkey’s Paw,’  _ Hermione grumbled within her mind,  _ ‘Just give me the whole fucking Monkey instead.’ _

The space was laid out the same, with exception to the ensnarement, the binding lines of ritual blood that would lock them together soul for soul. If the few snippets of emotion that she had been able to pull from Bellatrix’s head before she was subdued were anything to go by (arousal tinged with anger, fear bleeding over towards desire and need, a debauchery that fit perfectly with the craving for adrenaline), the woman would get used to the new change in her mortality, and right quick as well. And if not… Well, she had her entire immortality to one day come to terms with it.

Magic crackled all around in her in arcs and spurts of purple lightning as she lit up the final runes, the last few glass containers of blood she had blessed and stored nearly two centuries prior now scattered all about her as ancient rites were brought back to life. All around her the metal of the building began to scream and groan, the wood trembling and shivering as purple fires sped off through the offered blood to dig into the now patterned skin of her homes one-time intruder. She could feel the silent tug of the Demon she had accidentally tangled with begin to channel and intrude upon her home, an echoing laughter taunting at the edges of her perception as her offering was found acceptable. 

It was all over in the next instant; the purple all faded away and down as blood seeped through the ground and off towards Hell below. The woman lying immobile in the center of the runes began to glow and shiver as purple runes blossomed into existence upon her skin, her new and twisted eyes opening upon a newly revealed world.

“Wakey, wakey Bellatrix,” Hermione hummed as she kneeled down beside her betrothed to gently nip upon an earlobe, “We have oh so much to do, and I’ve so very much to show you.”

Beneath paled eyelids the orbs roved and swirled around, magic pulling inwards until all at once they flew open, a purple fire erupting from the spaces in between as her new soul burned up through her vision.

**Author's Note:**

> Like Bellamione? https://discord.gg/pcfMU4F come on in and join the server!


End file.
